Challenges Facing Guitar Education

Author(s): Eli Harrison

Source: Music Educators Journal , September 2010, Vol. 97, No. 1 (September 2010), pp.
50-55
Published by: Sage Publications, Inc. on behalf of MENC: The National Association for
Music Education

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/40960178

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 by Eli Harrison

Challenges Facing
Guitar Education

guitar is an extremely versatile instru- fretboard to raise the pitch; a guitarist told
ment. It can produce complex chords to move two frets higher might play a lower
and arpeggiated textures as readily as tone. (As a parenthetical note, staff notation
single-note melodies. In the twentieth centu- transposes guitar music one octave higher
ry alone, it has appeared in a wide range of than it sounds. The high E string on the guitar
genres; classical, jazz, blues, rock, and bossa is actually a major third above middle C.)
nova compose a partial list. Simple tonal melodies can be difficult
The guitar is also a difficult instrument. on guitar for several reasons. First, the guitar
Inconsistencies across the guitar's structural does not have white frets and black frets the
and notational systems create an environment way a piano has white keys and black keys.
in which guitarists struggle against the instru- Beginning guitarists must immediately inter-
ment to develop their own musical awareness. pret the differences between half steps and
The role of the guitar in the context of West- whole steps, unlike beginning pianists, who
Sometimes reviled, ern music suggests a lingering incompatibility can rely on the consecutive white keys of C
sometimes revered, with traditional academic musicianship. Care- major. Second, the six strings of the guitar
ful consideration of structural, notational, his- create a condition where one pitch can have
the guitar offers torical, and current issues will help students several fingerings.
music educators and instructors further advance the study and
appreciation of the guitar. The very low notes and the very high
the chance to teach notes on the guitar have only one loca-
Structural Challenges tion and not too many fingerings, but
a wide variety of concert middle C, which is in the mid-
The physical dimensions of the guitar might dle register of the instrument, has five
musical styles. create immediate obstacles. Young students locations and about 16 different finger-
and many adults may have trouble stretch- ings! . . . The average note on the guitar
ing their fretboard hand across multiple frets. has 2.8 locations and 9.2 fingerings!1
Others may not be able to comfortably reach
the frets farthest from the guitar's body, near Additionally, the intervals between the strings
the head. Left-handed guitarists must restring are not identical. Most strings are spaced by a
a guitar in reverse order or find a left-handed perfect fourth, but the interval between the G
instrument. and B strings is a major third. Students who
As guitarists learn to produce pitches on approach the fretboard by visualizing patterns
the fretboard, they can easily encounter direc- across all six strings at once, especially by way
tional reversals. Figure 1 illustrates a guitar in of pentatonic scales and chord charts, may not
standard tuning. The string positioned at the have any trouble navigating the major third.
vertical top of the guitar produces the lowest On the other hand, those who prefer seeing
pitches. The string at the bottom makes the the relative intervals from a starting point
highest pitches. The frets of the guitar follow need to account for a missing half step when
Copyright © 2010 MENC: The National a similar phenomenon. Guitarists descend the moving between the G and B strings.
Association for Music Education
DOI: 10.1177/0027432109334421
http://mej.sagepub.com Eli Harrison is an educator and performer in the San Francisco Bay Area. He can be contacted at eli.ham'son.x@gmail.com.

50 Music Educators Journal September 2010

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 The tuning of the guitar often conflicts
with other instruments, especially B-flat FIGURE 1
and E-flat instruments, such as the clari-
Basic layout of the guitar, and string pitches in standard tuning.
net, trumpet, and saxophone. The easiest
(Illustration by author.)
songs for beginning guitarists feature key
signatures with sharps: G, D, A, and E
major. Outside these keys, common chord
progressions may pose a technical chal-
lenge beyond the skill of most beginners.
Guitarists, therefore, are difficult to include
in otherwise accessible educational set-
tings, like school orchestras and jazz bands.

Notation Issues
Staff notation has proven itself an indis-
pensable method of communicating
music. Unfortunately, the range of pos-
sible fingerings gives less experienced
guitarists an extra sight-reading puzzle.
Violin and brass families share similar
fingering concerns; however, their long-
standing role in orchestral music brought
them into a comprehensive tradition
of staff-reading. Also, they are less fre-
quently expected to produce chords or
harmony in a solo setting, a prominent
feature of the guitar. Guitarists have
developed additional forms of music
notation to approach the fretboard. FIGURE 2
Fingerstyle guitarists often use staff
notation with expanded markings. Figure Staff notation with guitarist markings. Excerpted from Francisco
2 is an excerpt of such a score, composed Tárrega, "Adagio in A," in The Classic Guitar Collection, vol. 1
by Francisco Tárrega. Numbers by each (New York: Amsco, 1977), 93.
notehead indicate which finger to use. A
number or letter with a circle tells which
string will voice the given pitch. Italicized
letters by each notehead show which fin-
ger will strum the string: p for the thumb,
/ for the index finger, m for the middle fin-
ger, and a for the ring finger. Stems point-
ing down also indicate a thumb stroke.
Even with adaptations, staff notation
poses several challenges. Guitar typicallystaff notation still emphasizes pitch over strings to play. It resembles staff notation,
uses only the treble clef, occasionallyfretboard clarity; a guitarist must translate but has six lines symbolizing each string on
requiring extended passages of upper orthe given pitch and fingering to a precise the guitar. Most modern tablature is writ-
lower ledger lines for the extreme low andlocation on the fretboard. ten with the highest-pitched string at the
high ranges of the guitar. Some chords Guitarists across several styles will top line and the lowest-pitched string at the
may even span across both lower anduse tablature notation. Tablature directly bottom. Instead of noteheads, numbers
upper ledger lines. Furthermore, adaptedillustrates which combination of frets and show which frets to press. A guitarist need

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not understand staff notation to learn a song
from tablature. Figure 3 shows a simple FIGURE 3
melody with staff and tablature notation.
Staff notation with tablature. Traditional, "Mexican Hat Dance."
Tablature has disadvantages. It does
(Arrangement by author.)
not show the melody as an absolute series
of pitches, nor does it use the letter names
of notes. Tablature does not clearly indi-
cate rhythms unless it is accompanied by
another form of notation.
A fretboard chart, illustrated in
Figure 4, is yet another common form
of guitar notation. Fretboard charts
usually depict single chords independent
of time and rhythm. They can also show
FIGURE 5
extended patterns, like arpeggios and
FIGURE 4
pentatonic scales. A grid represents each A movable chord shape; position
string and a cross section of frets. Dots Examples of fretboard charts. on the fretboard determines pitch.
indicate where to put one's fingers. Num-
bers on the side tell which finger to use,
the letter O stands for an open string, and
an X means to mute or skip the string. If
the chord belongs anywhere other than
the first frets, the chart will include a
fret number as a reference point.
Fretboard charts introduce the idea
of movable chord shapes. Figure 5 shows
the comparison of an A-flat major seventh
chord and a C-sharp major seventh chord.
The strings and fingerings are exactly the
FIGURE 6
same; the difference is the starting fret. A The chord shape of a voicing will change when its transposition crosses
guitarist who understands movable chord
between the G and B strings.
shapes can easily transpose many songs
and chord progressions.
Fretboard charts also show how the
different interval of a major third between
the G and B strings affects chord shapes.
All other strings lie a major fourth apart,
so guitarists must change the fingering
of a chord if they transpose it across the
G and B strings. Figure 6 illustrates this
phenomenon by comparing three identi-
cally voiced chords. Guitarists who try to
read staff notation must not only translate guitarist is right-handed; left-handed gui- Figure 8 shows how the careful presen-
pitches and notes to locations on the fret-tarists must make a mirror image. tation of multiple forms of notation can
board; they must also match the intervals Most publishers make fretboard charts diminish their differences.
within the written work to ideal shapesdifficult to read by rotating them ninety
across several strings. degrees clockwise. This needless practice Historical Considerations
The drawbacks of fretboard charts are places the head of the guitar at the top of
similar to those of tablature: the absolute the chart and the bridge at the bottom,
The modern six-string guitar and its stan-
pitches are not explicitly given, and rhyth- a point of view attainable only if guitar- dard tuning came into existence only in
mic information is completely absent. ists held their instruments under the chin the early 1800s. It evolved from a rapidly
Also, fretboard charts must be fairly large like a violin, depicted in Figure 7. A fret- changing family of instruments including
to be legible. They are more useful as board chart presented in a horizontal ori- the lute, vihuela, cittern, four-course guitar,
a reference guide than as a performanceentation reproduces the guitarist's visual and harp-guitar. Unlike the saxophone's
notation. Fretboard charts assume the image of the fretboard more accurately. close similarities to the clarinet, the guitar

52 Music Educators Journal September 2010

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 of delightful original pieces and studies
FIGURE 7 for the instrument, but also extended the
art of transcribing for the guitar music
Afretboard chart with a vertical orientation, and the implied perspective
already written for other instruments."4
of the guitarist. Vertical fretboard charts are needlessly and incorrectly
He refined the motions for strumming
rotated ninety degrees clockwise. (Photo by Laura Harrison.) and fingering, and he popularized the
use of a footstool. His collaboration with
luthier Antonio Torres improved the con-
struction of six-string guitars.
The guitar became established within
academic communities in the last half of
the twentieth century largely through
the efforts of Spanish guitarist and com-
poser Andrés Segovia. "His achievement
. . . was not to prevent the guitar from
being a folkloric instrument, but to allow
it to assume an extended destiny."5 An
admired performer from an early age,
his itinerary quickly brought him into the
larger concert halls of Europe and, even-
tually, the entire world. He collaborated
with many composers to expand the gui-
tar's repertoire, and he encouraged music
schools to include guitar instruction.
Academic guitar instruction still
such as Schubert and Paganini, enjoyed remains in a state of infancy. As recently as
FIGURE 8 the guitar, most writing featured the 1950s, London guitarist Julian Bream
"was forbidden to take his instrument
A comparison of staff, the orchestra and the piano; empha-
into the [Royal College of Music] build-
tablature, and fretboard sis was upon increase of dynamic
ing."6 Scholars who lament guitarists' rep-
notation when the top of the range and color in ensemble. The
utation as poor music readers ultimately
image consistently represents guitar, whose tone was much less
illuminate a language barrier between
the highest pitches. robust and projecting than that of
the musical geometry of the guitar and
the modern instrument, was des-
the conventions of staff notation - a bar-
tined to suffer somewhat the same
rier reflected in the alternate notations for
fate as the delicate clavichord and
written guitar music.
even the harpsichord; that is, it was
not treated seriously by the great
Contemporary Challenges
composers of these periods.2

The guitar and its predecessors had also In the last half of the twentieth century,
rock and roll was introduced to the
developed a negative connotation among
musical scholars through its frequent use masses. A few aspiring guitar students will

in the folk music of troubadour, gypsy, and know the composer Leo Brouwer; many
flamenco cultures. It would often accom- more will recognize Jimi Hendrix. Popular
does not resemble its predecessors. Some pany singers and dancers rather than stand music provides a wide-ranging, contem-
had as many as twenty-one strings; oth- alone as an instrument of solo proficiency, porary repertoire, but it is not always easy
ers used four pairs of strings. Many had to include in a formal environment.
"lowering further the estimation of the
their own unique tuning. Modern guitar- Some academic institutions auto-
guitar in the eyes of the vast majority of
ists who study the compositions of Sanz, serious musicians."3 As a result, few com- matically equate popular music with poor-
de Narvaéz, and Dowland usually learn an positions for guitar came from a time of quality music. Richard Middleton and
adaptation from an early instrument. otherwise fruitful musicianship. Peter Manuel, writing for Grove Music
As the modern guitar evolved from In the late nineteenth century, Span- Online, define popular genres as
its cousins, European music shifted from ish guitarist Francisco Tárrega helped types of music that are consid-
the classical period to the romantic. improve the prevailing attitude toward ered to be of lower value and
Although some prominent musicians, guitar. "He not only composed a quantity complexity than art music, and

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 not compete with the sonic density of The
Well-Tempered Clavier io validate a single
principle of harmonic theory.
If relevant popular songs did hold
a place in academic music instruction,
intellectual property laws could hinder
their official dissemination as course
material. A work is protected by copyright
for seventy-five years following the death
of its creator, and in many instances, com-
posers of popular songs are still alive.
Music publishers have aggressively fought
unauthorized reproduction from central-
ized sources. In 2006, publishers ordered
the Online Guitar Archive, a collection of
amateur transcriptions, to cease opera-
tions, claiming that

the availability of unauthorized

tabs hurts sheet music sales and
violates . . . copyright holders' "[ex-
clusive] right to make and dis-
tribute arrangements, adaptations,
abridgements, or transcriptions of
copyrighted musical works

The tablatures constitute deriv

works of the original copyrig
works, which are also protect
U.S. copyright law."8

A school that wished to forma

a comprehensive selection o
recordings and transcriptions in
ulum might need to obtain a li
every copyright holder involve
Popular music from the late
eth and early twenty-first cen
sonic challenges as well. If an
composed and arranged a so
tively, the guitar part might
alone as a complete musical
tronic and digital audio manip
transform a guitar's sound bey
ditional range of expression;
might simply be a temporal tr
technological sound effect.

to be readily accessible to large instance, the song "Run to the Water" by

numbers of musically uneducated pop/rock ensemble Live can introduce Considerations
listeners rather than to an élite.7 the full cadence, piagai cadence, relative and Suggestions
major and minor keys, and direct modula-
While a significant amount of popular tion. "Here Comes My Girl" by Tom Petty An instructor who wishes to f
music has been written with more atten- and the Heartbreakers illustrates the dif- learning curve for students f
tion to marketing than to artistry, issuing a ference between modal harmony and choices. Tablature may build a
blanket judgment against the entire genre tonal harmony, alternately in the verse repertoire quickly; including sta
dismisses any potential for education. For and the chorus. A musical example need will develop a more versatile

54 Music Educators Journal September 2010

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Horizontal fretboard charts match the
guitarist's point of view and provide a Some Guita
consistent imagery across multiple meth- • Coelho, Victor An
ods of written notation, but vertical fret- Interpretation (Ca
board charts are standard in publishing. • d'A Jensen, Ric
Contemporary popular music may be a 376-83.

student's inspiration to study guitar, but • Goodrick, Mick. The Advancing Guitarist: Applying Guitar Concepts and Techniques (Third
a high-quality transcription might be Earth, 1987). Distributed by Hal Leonard.

expensive or harmonically incomplete. A • Live. "Run to the Water." The Distance to Here. MCA, 1999.

formalized class of limited duration might • Middleton, Richard, and Peter Manuel. "Popular Music." Grove Music Online.

not provide enough time to learn both • Petty, Tom, and the Heartbreakers. "Here Comes My Girl." Greatest Hits (MCA, 1993). (orig
Damn the Torpedoes. MCA, 1979.)
the basics of the guitar and a foundation
• Sharpe, Albert Percy. The Story of the Spanish Guitar, 4th ed. (London: Clifton Essex,
of Western harmonic theory. Neverthe-
1968).
less, the gulf between guitarists and other
musicians need not be wide. • Shearer, Aaron. "The Classical Guitar Grows Up." Music Educators Journal 58, no. 2 (October
1971): 53, 64-65.
School conductors and ensemble lead-
• Simon, Jason. "Why Copyright Should Save Guitar Tablatures." Arizona Law Review 50 (Sum-
ers can include guitar-appropriate music
mer 2008): 611-38.
while searching for material. Jazz guitar-
• Summerfield, Maurice J. The Classical Guitar: Its Evolution, Players, and Personalities Since
ist Django Reinhardt wrote and arranged a
1800, 5th ed. (Blaydon on Tyne, UK: Ashley Mark, 2002).
large number of songs in the early twentieth
• Tárrega, Francisco. "Adagio in A." The Classic Guitar Collection, vol. 1 (New York: Amsco, 1977).
century featuring common orchestra instru- • Tuck, Mary Lynn. "Tablature Notation in the Sixteenth Century." Music Educators Journal 53,
ments, such as upright bass, violin, and clar- no. 1 (September 1996): 121-23.
inet. Although some of his music requires • Turnbull, Harvey. The Guitar: From the Renaissance to the Present Day (New York: Charles
quick motion and technical proficiency, Schriber's Sons, 1974).
he had only two functional fingers with • Tyler, James. "The Mandore in the 16th and 17th Centuries." Early Music 9, no. 1 (January
which to travel the fretboard; many of his 1981): 22-31.
chord voicings are manageable by interme- • Villa-Lobos, Heitor. Collected Works for Solo Guitar (New York: Amsco, 1990).
diate students. Brazilian bossa nova artists • Wade, Graham. Segovia: A Celebration of the Man and His Music (London: Allison & Busby,
Antonio Carlos Jobim and João Gilberto use 1983).

different types of movable chord shapes.

Their music can also include a simple jazz
arrangement with other melodic or rhyth-
mic instruments. and harmonic theory more directly. A new 3. Maurice Joseph Summerfield, The
Classical Guitar: Its Evolution, Players,
The guitar can also become a vehicle instrument likely includes a new genre
and Personalities Since 1800, 5th ed.
for ethnic studies. Guitars and guitarlike of music, thus expanding the guitarist's
(Blaydon on Tyne, UK: Ashley Mark,
instruments accompany Celtic songs, greater musical education. 2002), 16.
mariachi songs of Mexico, Spanish fla- Instructors and students alike should
4. Summerfield, The Classical Guitar, 17.
menco, South American folk music, and remember that the guitar is a relative
5. Graham Wade, Segovia: A Celebration of
American blues. The guitar also has sev- newcomer in the academic world. Its his- the Man and His Music (London: Allison
eral cousins around the world, including tory and physical characteristics prevent & Busby, 1983), 115.
the bouzouki, oud, sitar, and shamisen. its easy incorporation into some aspects
6. Wade, Segovia, 118.
Guitarists of the previous centuries strove of Western musical scholarship. Creativ-
to free their instrument from its automatic ity, mindfulness, and patience will ensure 7. Richard Middleton and Peter Manuel,
"Popular Music," in Grove Music Online,
association with folk music; however, a that the guitar continues to be an instru-
http://0-www.oxfordmusiconline.com
diversifying population in a commercial- ment of opportunity and proficiency. .opac.sfsu.edUiSO/subscriber/article/
ized society may see an opportunity for grove/music/43179 (accessed October
cultural preservation where yesterday's Notes 27, 2008).

scholars saw a lower-class stigma. 8. Jason Simon, "Why Copyright Should

1. Mick Goodrick, The Advancing Save Guitar Tablatures," Arizona Law
Last, guitarists themselves may wish
Guitarist: Applying Guitar Concepts and Review 50 (Summer 2008): 613; Ross
to consider a brief foray into a second Techniques (Third Earth, 1987), 93. J. Charap, Attorney, Moses and Singer,
instrument. Most instruments do not use
2. Aaron Shearer, "The Classical Guitar LLP, to Olga.net, June 9, 2006, available
multiple forms of specialized notation, Grows Up," Music Educators Journal 58, at http://www.olga.net (follow links 1-6
freeing the guitarist to study staff notation no. 2 (October 1971): 53. to the image files).

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